The latest craze to sweep across Britain’s playgrounds is loom bands and the kids love them – not so great if you or your child is allergic to latex though.
Loom bands recently shot to fame after a lady sold a loom band dress made from thousands of the little loops for £170,100 plus £7 postage! Now that is insane! She had been hoping for £50 but she got a bit more than that and I’m guessing she didn’t have a latex allergy but the dress should come with a warning…
If you haven’t come across them yet think of rubber bands. They are like coloured bands, slightly thicker than a standard rubber band and quite small, kind of big enough to squeeze over your finger. You loop them all together to make bracelets, rings, mats, anything you can come up with really, even a quarter of a million pound dress if you’re a total genius.
However this craze has led to a crop of latex allergy reactions; the Latex Allergy Support Group has a warning on their forum.
If your child is desperate to get into this latest fad but either you or they have a latex allergy, you can get latex free loom bands.
You will obviously have to be very careful about swapping bands, bands made by friends or brought to your house that may not be latex free and it may be worth speaking to the school if the child has a very serious latex allergy… could be tricky!
You can buy Latex Free Loom Bands on Amazon.
Funky, colourful and cheap MedicAlert bracelets
On a more positive note, one blogger, My Material Life, has shared a very innovative use of the bands to make a MedicAlert bracelet for her daughter. I think this is a fab idea for kids with allergies. It makes the medical bracelet far more fun to wear and they can change the colours, swap the bracelets around etc. I have a medicalert bracelet, a silver one since I’m allergic to the normal nickel ones, and they are not cheap.
Can adults wear loom bands?
I have had limited experience of these myself and can only assume that my nieces and nephew have latex free bands. They didn’t feel like latex to me and so, probably unwisely, I wore a loom band ring leant to me by my nephew (thank you!), for a whole day! I have a latex allergy and didn’t have any reaction at all and there was some discussion about whether they would be OK for me to wear. I was feeling risky… I wore the ring. I can always smell latex from a long way away and my nostrils were quite happy with these little looms.
One thing I’ve noticed about these bands is that the kids are fiercely proud of them and are loathe to let you touch one let alone have one! A demonstration is allowed but as an adult you must stand back and watch… you certainly won’t be getting made one but you might be allowed to borrow one, under duress, if you promise to give it back! The loom band I wore went to The Allergy Show with me and spent the whole day making paper plate mates on the Allergy Adventure stand! It stood up well to the hard work and was strong, very comfortable and colourful. I was very hip and down the kids that day!
Now I wonder if they could make me a loom band dress for my next birthday? They’d never notice if sold it on ebay… would they?
Have you had a reaction to loom bands? Is it easy to get latex free bands? Do you struggle with the whole swapping bands thing if your child has a latex allergy?
Photography courtesy of my beautiful sister in law www.lilysawyer.com
I am allergic to some of the loom bands my daughter made me and some not… mostly recently I have been getting VERY itchy rashes around my wrist that itch so bad I ended up ripping the skin off. I will have to see about these so called latex free ones. Thanks for your article 🙂
I wore some made by my nephew and I seemed to be fine, but the problem is, people may buy one lot from that shop, another lot online, see them cheap in poundland and in the end you have a whole heap of mixed up loom bands and who on earth can tell which is which? I’m guessing the latex ones will be the cheaper ones and possibly not as durable but who knows. I am very wary of them and was probably fool hardy wearing a loom band ring to the allergy show of all places but I returned unharmed, no rash. So clearly my family have good taste in loom bands.
i started with latex free bands and it is great…… i bough new ones that may not be latex free and i am iching like crazy…. my arm had red rashes on it
better be carefull what you buy…
Hi Keishara, guessing now you can’t tell the difference between the latex free and rubber ones. hope it clears up soon.
well on the LATEX FREE ones it says that its latex free ..
Well thank goodness for that. At least you can put some gloves on and weedle out all those nasty latex ones. 🙂
dear Ruth
washing the latex loom bands 3 times with rooibos soap cause less skin itchiness… it was my mother’s idea and now i work with the latex loom bands… without getting itchy all the time
Hi,
These bands are very much useful in case of emergency which contains your basic, medical, and emergency contact information.